I have an interesting insight about emotions, which I’ll share tomorrow, but first I’m going to disagree with a popular perspective.
Emotions in general have developed a bad brand. It’s in large part because self-help personalities paint them as a disruptive force to be subdued or a weakness to overcome. People listen to those personalities, trust them, and spread various versions of that general opinion.
You’ll recognize it in statements like, “Set emotions aside” ... “Too emotional” … “If you take your emotions out of it”. Emotions get framed as incapable of adding value and then it’s suggested to literally eliminate or ignore them.
I don’t believe emotions have earned that brand. I believe they’ve been assigned that brand out of misunderstanding, convenience, and salesmanship. It’s an inaccurate, unjustified, and ineffective perspective. Not to mention impossible, as emotions are central to every second of our experience and every aspect of everything we do.
Emotions are wonderful. They are wild. They are brilliant. They’re also complex and disorienting at times. They are equally capable of propelling us to our best as they are of dragging us to our worst. They are the part of ourselves we need to investigate and understand most not least, to see the best not just the worst.
So let’s not label an emotion good or bad. Let’s not assign our emotions a leading role nor a subordinate one. Let’s not cage our emotions and relegate them to a life of captivity nor turn our emotions loose and unleash them without restraint. Let’s apply the minds we are gifted with and skills we are learning to make good use of our emotions.
Continue to develop the self-awareness to recognize what’s going on with your emotions, the self-discipline to use all your emotions for benefit rather than harm, and the self-confidence to live and express with emotional wisdom.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you a simple, but significant, awareness to develop emotional wisdom.
Everything is training for something. Do the work.
Share your thoughts